1.T2.F (technically the
accountants know the results)3.T4.F
(TV transmission began in 1953) or NM (it is not said whether the first
transmissions were successful)5.F (1929)6.F
( it takes place at theaters) 7.NM or F (you have to be prominent in the film
industry)8.NM

Today, the first sci-fi film.
The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about
the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity
created them.

It's 1902. The motion picture
technology is in its early years. It wasn't long before, in the 1890s, when the
Lumière brothers, Thomas Edison and Georges Méliès made their first short films.
However, this particular year of 1902, the French illusionist and filmmaker
Georges Méliès made something special. He produced the first science fiction
film: A Trip to the Moon. And it's from this film that a famous iconic image
emerges: A space ship lands in the moon's eye. This was 57 years before the
first unmanned landing on the moon and 67 years before the first human touched
the Lunar soil.

The film is silent and runs
for about 14 minutes. It starts with a group of scientists, professors and
astronomers gathering in a large hall. They wear long robes and pointed hats.
They discuss how to travel to the moon and eventually find a way to do it. They
insert a space capsule inside a giant cannon and shoot it into space.

Georges Méliès was born on
December 8th, 1861 in
Paris. He had a strong artistic passion from an early age as he enjoyed
sketching people and places and made cardboard theatres. After his education,
he purchased a theatre in Paris and began writing and directing illusion shows.
He eventually entered the field of filmmaking.

In his film A Trip to the Moon, we get to see the space traveler's point of
view. The moon has a person's face and it magnifies, as the space capsule gets
closer. When it lands, we see the iconic image of the bullet-shaped capsule
stuck in the moon's eye. We see the planets and stars in the sky with their
faces and identities, watching over the Earthling visitors. A celestial
connection can be felt. We also see the image of the earth from the moon's
horizon — eerily similar to another iconic image, the actual photo taken by
NASA many years later.

Méliès' trip to the moon is a
story of humanity's long-time dream of space exploration. It displays elements
of dream and fantasy, with the suggestion of the science that would make it
happen. We can feel the magic and excitement of discovery. Perhaps the same
feeling that we had when Armstrong walked on the moon or when the first rover
landed on Mars.

We search for something new,
surprising and powerful that can transform our lives forever. For the first
time, Georges Méliès conveyed this through a motion picture.

I'm Haleh Ardebili at the
University of Houston, where we're interested in the way inventive minds work.